WooCommerce — A free, open-source ecommerce plugin for WordPress with 0% platform fees; hosting typically runs $25-350/month and premium extensions cost $29-299/year.
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WooCommerce in 20 seconds
Best for: merchants and developers who want full control of their store's code, data, and payment processor without a platform revenue share
Pricing: Core plugin is free; real total cost comes from separate hosting ($25-350/month) and optional extensions ($29-299/year each).
- WooCommerce is a free, open-source ecommerce plugin for WordPress, owned by Automattic.
- The core plugin has 0% platform fee and no revenue share, with unlimited products, orders, and API calls.
- Hosting typically runs $25-350/month; WooPayments processing runs about 2.5-2.9% + 30 cents per transaction.
- Premium extensions are priced à la carte from $29-299/year each.
Limitations: True total cost is spread across separate hosting, payment, and extension purchases, harder to budget than an all-in-one platform.; Requires managing WordPress itself unless paying for managed hosting.
Top alternatives: Shopify, BigCommerce, Adobe Commerce (Magento) — full list
What is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is a free, open-source ecommerce plugin for WordPress, owned by Automattic (also the company behind WordPress.com and Jetpack), that converts a WordPress site into a full online store: product catalogs, cart, checkout, shipping, and order management. The core plugin carries no platform fee and no revenue share — Automattic's own comparison materials contrast this against Shopify's $29-2,300+/month subscription tiers plus transaction fees. Running a real store still costs money, just not to WooCommerce directly: merchants pay for WordPress hosting separately (commonly $25-350/month depending on traffic and performance needs), pay a payment processor (WooPayments runs roughly 2.5-2.9% + 30 cents per transaction, though any gateway can be used), and typically buy à la carte premium extensions — for advanced shipping rules, subscriptions, bookings, or specific payment gateways — priced individually at $29-299/year each. Because it's self-hosted, WooCommerce gives merchants full control of their data and no lock-in to a single payment processor, at the cost of needing to manage hosting, security, and updates themselves (or pay a managed WooCommerce host to do it). Native iOS and Android apps let merchants manage orders and inventory from a phone.
WooCommerce is a free, open-source ecommerce plugin for WordPress, owned by Automattic, that turns any WordPress site into an online store with unlimited products, orders, and API access at no platform fee, unlike Shopify's revenue-share and subscription-tier model. The core plugin is free forever (GPL-licensed, source on GitHub with 10,500+ stars), but running a real store adds separate costs: hosting typically runs $25-350/month depending on traffic, payment processing through WooPayments runs about 2.5-2.9% + 30 cents per transaction, and premium extensions (shipping, subscriptions, bookings, and similar add-ons) cost $29-299/year each, à la carte. WooCommerce ships native mobile apps for iOS and Android for store management, and merchants can sell across their own site plus marketplaces and social channels. Because WooCommerce is self-hosted, merchants own their data and can choose any payment gateway rather than being locked into one processor.
Standout feature: Zero platform fees or revenue share on the core plugin — unlike Shopify or BigCommerce, WooCommerce doesn't take a cut of sales, and every payment gateway is allowed rather than one default processor.
Biggest weakness: The "free" plugin's true cost is diffuse and easy to underestimate: hosting, a payment processor, security/backups, and the premium extensions most real stores need (advanced shipping, subscriptions, specific gateways) are all separate purchases from separate vendors, so total monthly cost can land close to or above Shopify's all-in-one pricing once a store scales.
Pros
- No platform fee or revenue share on sales, unlike Shopify's percentage-based plans.
- Full data ownership and free choice of payment gateway since the store is self-hosted.
- Open-source (GPL) with a large plugin/theme ecosystem and an active GitHub community (10,500+ stars).
- Unlimited products, orders, and API calls with no plan-based caps.
Cons
- Total cost is spread across separate hosting, payment processing, and extension purchases, making it harder to budget upfront than an all-in-one platform.
- Requires managing WordPress itself (updates, security, backups) unless paying for managed hosting.
- Steeper setup and maintenance learning curve than hosted platforms like Shopify, especially for non-technical merchants.
WooCommerce pricing
Free · verified from the vendor's pricing page
| Plan | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| WooCommerce Core | Free | Free forever; unlimited products, orders, and API access; 0% platform fee and no revenue share. |
| Hosting | Custom | Not sold by WooCommerce directly; typical managed WordPress/WooCommerce hosting runs $25-350/month depending on traffic and performance tier. |
| Premium extensions | Custom | À la carte pricing from $29-299/year per extension (shipping, subscriptions, bookings, and similar add-ons). |
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